ENG 385-1.4: Toronto Case Study

Here is the earliest known example of English poetry, transcribed using IPA:

But we have set ourselves the task of exploring the history of the English language in reverse chronological order, from present to past. 

So where do we begin?   With which present-day variety?

Toronto English seems the best choice.

What is Toronto English, as of this year?

Pause a moment and imagine what is the most definitive sound of the English language as Torontonian – the voice most recognizable as distinctly Torontonian both within our city and in contexts outside it.

If a historical sociolinguist or historical linguist in the 3020s were to look at an example of present-day Toronto English — just as we have done with the seventh- or eighth-century poem above — what would that scholar find, and work from, as exemplary of right here, right now, this year?

Here’s my guess:

Try reading the text again, but with an audio of the subject’s own voice (start from timestamp 02:57):

Here’s another sample from the same subject — watch it from timestamp 00:18 to timestamp 2:32, alongside a sample Case Study handout with IPA included (click here) —note that the handout has 6 salient features (you only need 3-5 for yours).

But what about this sample, from the same subject, alongside a speaker of MLE (that is, of Multicultural London English, one of the fastest growing varieties in the UK)? Play 00:10 to 00:59, then 01:19 to 01:39.

But then again, Drake may simply be drawing on Multicultural Toronto English, represented in this often hilarious spoof video: notice the appearance of “pree” in the first few seconds, then skip to timestamps 02:47 to 03:08, then 03:37 to 05:25.

Is that Drake’s real voice? What is Drake’s real voice? What is real in terms of language? Consider, too, this clip, from timestamp 5:52 to 6:45:

Finally, watch three clips of this Drake bio video (from 00:38 to 01:38, then from 3:26 to 3:36, then from 13:03 to 13:30):

What it comes down to: like nearly any hip-hop icon, Drake has been critiqued for inauthenticity — but such critiques assume that, in spoken language, authenticity even exists. As much as Drake has obviously consciously crafted his public personae using different language practices, hip-hop is, as Pennycook has argued, fundamentally resistant in the first place to any purist model of linguistic authenticity:

And you will see that Pennycook article duly referenced in your upcoming reading from Seargeant and Tagg, who make similar observations about internet Englishes: